This is one of my favorite portraits of Jerome Bonaparte. I could imagine falling in love with this guy—or at least getting a serious crush on him. Usually when I needed to write love scenes between him and Betsy, I’d look at this for a while to get in the mood.

by Sophie Lienard, via Wikimedia Commons

And I love this portrait of Napoleon because he looks so young and intense in it. Actually, he was 34 when it was painted, but to me, he looks like he’s in his early twenties. It has a very different character from the portraits made just a few years later with all the imperial trappings.

A Portrait of Bonaparte, First Consul by François Gérard, via Wikimedia Commons

This is a portrait of their mother.

Portrait of Letizia Bonaparte by Robert Lefévre, via Wikimedia Commons

And I’ll repeat the scandalous portrait of Pauline I showed a few weeks ago.

Portrait of Pauline Bonaparte by Robert Lefevre, Image from Wikimedia Commons

I never really thought of Napoleon as particularly handsome, but this portrait could make me revise that opinion. And Jerome, well, . . . his looks didn’t last, but as a young man, he was definitely dashing.

Yes. There’s an intensity–almost an earnestness–about him that I find attractive. Knowing what he became mitigates that somewhat, and yet I still find the portrait appealing, which I think says a lot about the quality of this painting.